Cold Weather Report and Butcher the Butterfly Bushes

The stats are in and you can see from the chart that the temperature has been much colder this year compared to last year. The chart shows the high temperature for each day from Jan. 1 through Feb. 24. The average high for 2006 was 53 degrees and the average for 2007 was 48 degrees. A 5 degree colder average is a pretty big difference.

Today was the day to cut back the Butterfly bushes. A couple of years ago, we bought some bushes from an online nursery and received 10 free Butterfly bushes. 6 of the Butterfly bushes took off growing to 8 feet tall and attracting beautiful butterflies which were a joy to watch. Today we cut them back to about 3 feet with hopes they will bloom even better this year. The bushes we ordered, Prague Viburnum were planted outside the fence, turned out not to be deer resistant as we expected so they have been chewed back to the ground level the past two years. I suspect they won't even recover this summer.